


In Their Garden

by PropShopHannah



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Angst, Azlain, Elriel, F/M, Fluff, Pastoral
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-16 12:10:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9270227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PropShopHannah/pseuds/PropShopHannah
Summary: During the War, Azriel saves Elain and they both discover that the bond they build with one another is more sacred than anything bond the Cauldron could have blessed.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm propshophannah on tumblr

 

Azriel watched Elain through the window of his small mountain home– _ their  _ small mountain home. Her hair was like tendrils of liquid gold in the late morning sun. She was singing to herself. That sleepy, beautiful lullaby about the rose and the briar as she clipped the dead off her flowers. They’d build her garden together.

_ Their garden,  _ Azriel thought. He was still not used to the wording.

When he’d found her, she had not been happy or golden or singing. She’d been bloody and burned and screaming. He shuddered at the memory, but could not keep it at bay.

He’d been grounded, too wounded to fly, so he’d been to travel by foot. The war had raged around him. He’d slaughtered his way across the countryside, biding his time until his magic returned more fully, so that he might heal enough to fly or winnow to the Illyrian legions.

He’d been deep in Autumn Court territory at the time.

Mor had been dead for months, and he’d thrown himself into a reckless routine of battle after battle. He’d been so blind in his rage and sorrow that he’d not cared what happened to him. Only what happened to the enemy. To those responsible for the war, for her death. He’d done stupid things, made careless mistakes, and it had cost him.

When he’d fallen from the sky, his wings had been nearly shredded, his mind and magic nearly gone, his soul cleaved. He had not cared. Had only hoped that the fall would kill him.

It had not.

It’d taken a week for his broken limbs to heal enough to crawl. Two weeks before he’d been able to walk. Three before he’d found a reason to live.

He’d been headed toward the Spring Court, when he’d heard her screaming and smelt the blood. There’d been too many enemy soldiers for him to take on alone. He’d had to wait for an opportunity.

Had had to wait–and hated himself for it. Still hated himself for it.

He’d followed the screaming and had come upon Elain. She’d been clinging to Lucien’s body, surrounded by Hybern soldiers. Azriel hadn’t needed to see the male to know that he’d had been dead for over a day. The smell had been enough.

Elain had screamed for her mate to wake up, for the soldiers to leave her alone. Her dress had been shredded to rags, one of her legs almost fully exposed. Her hair a matted mess of earth and foliage and blood.

They’d burned her.

Aziel had smelt it even before he’d seen the wound. The top of her exposed left thigh had been burned and not by just any metal. No, the metal they’d used was a kind all too familiar to Azriel. His scarred hands a constant reminder of what  _ that _ kind of iron could do to Fae skin once hot enough.

His instinct to protect had roared to life then. Had emerged anew from the depths of his sorrow and guilt and–

He shuddered at the memory, gripping the kitchen sink to steady himself as fresh terror and panic laced his veins.

_ It’s over, it’s over, it’s over, _ he thought to himself. _ You’re not there anymore. You’re here. You’re free. You’re both safe. _ He looked through the kitchen window. It was his fault Elain had been with Lucien, his fault that she’d been caught in the middle of the war. 

He pushed the thought aside.

He watched as Elain wiped the back of an arm over her forehead. He smiled. She’d be coming inside soon, looking for her sun hat. 

He glanced around, he should bring it to her. He walked through the kitchen and into the small living room. The hat hung by the door. He passed the couch–

A memory of Elain tore through his mind. He was powerless to stop it.

After he’d saved her from the enemy–picking them off one by one as they’d left the safety of their group to piss and shit in the forest–he’d had to carry her. He’d thought she’d been laying next to Lucien’s body by choice, that she’d been too sad to move. He’d been wrong. She’d been too weak and wounded to move. Her magic drained.

He remembered the look on her face when she’d recognized him. The maelstrom of fear and panic that clouded her eyes had subsided for a second, and he’d seen the relief. The tears she would have cried had her body the resources to spare. That look was all he’d needed. He’d picked her up and had decided that he would live. That he would live through this nightmare so that he could return her to her family, to his– _ their _ –High Lady.

He’d headed to the Summer Court then, and just over the border he’d found an abandoned cabin. A stupid place to stay, but Elain… she’d needed mending and care. And it’d been raining nonstop since before they’d crossed the border. They were both freezing and drenched. And he’d decided that the little magic of his that had returned he could spare on hiding the cabin.

He’d brought her inside and had laid her down on an old couch in the middle of what had once been a living room. He’d found a cooking pot but nothing to use for bandages. He’d had to tear pieces off her dress. She hadn’t moved, empty eyes fixed on the ceiling, on nothing.

He’d sent some of his shadows into the forest to keep watch, then he’d filled the pot with rainwater, trying not to think about why it was raining in the Summer Court. The rest of his shadows he’d used to mask the light from a fire he’d built to boil the fabric.

She’d not moved when he’d cleaned her wounds. Only closed her eyes as if to stave off the pain–or maybe to lose herself in it. She’d looked half starved, they both had. She had not said a word to him, nor he to her.

She’d gone limp, fainted, when he’d cleaned the burn on her leg. And he’d hated himself for agreeing to let her play spy. For letting her use that bond between her and Lucien as a way into the Spring Court. She could charm a room full of adders with just a few smiles, but she wasn’t a warrior. She’d barely grown into her woman’s body when she’d been made Fae. And he’d sent her into enemy territory anyway.

She could be dangerous, and he’d known it the moment they’d met. He’d known that she could be useful in a war of strategy and information because she’d be the last one anyone would see coming. The last one anyone would think of as  _ spy. _

But as he’d tied the bandages around those burns, he’d hated himself for allowing her to go into the Spring Court. For not pulling her out months and months ago when he’d had the chance. When he’d seen how she was breaking. How she was beginning to believe she loved Lucien. That a mating bond meant they were in love… 

She’d laid unconscious for a long time. He’d stayed with her.

They’d spent too many days like that. He’d known that they’d needed to keep moving. They were still too close to the Autumn Court border, the forest wasn’t safe.

But she hadn’t improved. Even when he’d found food, fish and berries–nothing. Her wounds hadn’t healed. She’d barely slept. It was as if she’d just stalled. Given up.

One morning, Azriel had awoken to the sound of nothing. He’d immediately sat up, careful not to disturb Elain, whom he’d taken to sleeping next to for warmth. He’d unwrapped his wing from her carefully, happy to see the thick scabs holding his wounds closed. The rain had stopped. The air had felt warmer. 

_ A good sign, _ he’d thought.  _ A very good sign. _

That day, he’d gone to investigate the forest. Careful to conceal himself in the shadows cast from the bright sunlight. When he’d returned, he’d found Elain on the floor. She’d dragged herself to the center of the room–to lie in the sunshine peeking through the cracks in the boarded windows. She’d been limp and breathing heavily as if she’d used all her strength to find that sliver of light. But her face… ashen cheeks had been replaced with the faintest hint of rose.

And he’d realized then that she needed sunlight to heal, to replenish her magic. He’d cursed himself for not realizing sooner. 

He’d spent the next three days moving her across the room so that as the sun traveled the sky–casting its ever moving light across the floor–so too did Elain travel the room to lie in those healing slivers of sunlight.

He still wondered sometimes if she, and not the war, had been the cause of the rain.

Azriel shook himself from the memory, and picked the sun hat off the hook by the front door of the house. It was wide and floppy. He went outside and made his way to where Elain was tending their garden. 

She smiled when she saw him. It took his breath away every time.

She was golden in the late morning sunlight. Her white dress offset her sun-kissed skin along with the medley of bright blooms that surrounded her like a sea of color. The flowers swayed and bowed as if to her in the valley breeze.

He held up her hat, and she motioned him over, patting the green earth beside her. He sat, putting the hat on her head. She smiled as she tied the ribbons beneath her chin to hold it in place. She smelt like wildflowers.

He remembered the first time he’d realized it.

He’d travelled with Elain to the safety of the Summer Court. They’d been given separate quarters, but she’d refused hers. She’d not spoken much, but she’d told them that she would not leave Azriel’s side. He’d not said anything. He’d only squeezed her hand.

They’d held hands a lot back then. Elain needed the comfort, the thrum of the life energy that only another living thing could offer. She’d said it was both a comfort and a lifeline. He’d allowed it because he’d needed it as well. Had needed to know that he was not alone.

_ Friend, _ he’d thought.  _ She is my friend. _

They’d slept in separate beds but had pushed them up against one another so that if they needed, they could hold hands. They hadn’t slept much in those days.

One night, after months and months of silence, she’d told him about Lucien, about how he’d died. And about how he’d treated her before he’d died.

“He didn’t know,” she’d said, her voice nothing more than a whisper on the darkness. “He didn’t know how I felt. I was confused. I still loved Graysen, but the bond… I didn’t know how I could love another but feel so strongly for a stranger. I felt guilty, as if I’d betrayed my fiance. I did not ask to be Lucien’s mate, but I was. _ I was _ , and the life I’d thought I’d live was gone. I was remade and… and I think I went along with what he wanted from me because I was weak and scared and needed so desperately to make sense of everything, and to help win this war.”

When Elain had gone into the Spring Court as a spy, Azriel had known that she was not all right. But they’d been desperate, and she’d been so willing.

She’d turned to him then, eyes shining with tears, and told him what he’d already known. That she’d let herself get lost in the illusion of being someone’s mate. That she’d thought she could change for Lucien and that he would change for her. That she’d thought being the beautiful, obedient mate was not such a bad way to spend eternity. That they were bonded and that it meant something. That things would get better after the war. That their connection was rare and precious, and Cauldron Blessed. And that it meant they couldn’t harm one another.

“Love,” she’d said. “I thought it meant we were in love.”

But a mating bond didn’t mean love. And it’d didn’t mean that mates couldn’t hurt one another. All it meant was that the Cauldron wanted to people together for some reason only it knew. And as far as Azriel was concerned, that kind of blessing didn’t mean shit. 

_ But maybe, _ he’d thought.  _ I’ll reconsider that opinion if the information Elain gleaned from Lucien helps us win this war. _

A blessing indeed.

Elain had gone on to tell him how she’d spent hours in the Spring Court gardens, tending to flowers that didn’t need it. She’d told him how her only escape–the one she’d used to distract herself from poverty and starvation and hopelessness–had suddenly failed her. Left her. 

And he’d known. 

When she’d meet him in secret to divulge all she’d gathered on the Spring Court, he’d always asked how she was doing. At first, she’d told him about her time in the gardens and how beautiful they were. But then one day she’d just stopped mentioning them. Had stopped telling him about the quiet things she’d loved to nurture, to see grow.

On one visit, he’d asked about the gardens and she’d said, “They don’t need me to help them bloom. They survive on magic. Not love, not sunshine–magic.”

Gardening was a much an escape for Elain as it was a way to heal the wounds the world had given her. She’d  _ needed _ something to care for, to nurture, when there was no one there to nurture her.

Azriel had known that she’d been obedient long before she’d met Lucien. That she, same as he, had been the keeper of peace in her house. It wasn’t healthy, and he hadn’t been in any position to judge. He’d done the same thing with his family, his friends.

And so, as they’d laid in the darkness at the Summer Court, he’d told her about Mor. Had offered that tiny piece of himself, that seed, to see if she might nurture it, nurture  _ him _ .

He’d told her how he’d loved Mor from a distance for centuries before the night he’d found the courage to tell her. He’d told Elain about how he and Mor had had an affair behind everyone's backs, for centuries. And how he’d told himself that it was to keep Cassian safe, to keep the peace, and that they’d both been in agreement.

But then he’d told Elain how he’d grown to hate it.

How he’d hated that they’d had to sneak around and that it’d made him doubt his feelings for Mor, her feelings for him. Distance. There had always been such distance between them.

“When I found Mor in the Autumn Court,” he’d said, explaining about the punishment Mor had incurred for sleeping with Cassian. “I felt like the hero. Like I was more than the bastard-born Illyrian warrior who’d had to have his friend's mother teach him to fly.” He’d taken a deep breath. “Mor had chosen Cassian even though she’d looked at me all those times… but I was willing to overlook it, to be the savior she needed. Be the savior I never got all those years I spent in darkness… I’ve never told anyone that before.”

And it was the truth. He’d never confessed his secrets to anyone, had only ever gotten others to confess theirs to him.

“Do you think that maybe you did not ever really love her?” Elain had asked. Azriel had stayed silent, thinking. “Lucien… I think he loved the idea of me, more than the reality of me. Feyre told me once that he’d loved a female he’d thought was his mate, and had been forced to watch her die. I think he carried that memory with him all this time. I think when he saw me, he thought he’d been given a second chance. He’d had centuries to replay the life he’d lost with the female he’d loved in his head. To fantasize about what it would have been like to spend eternity with her.” Her voice had grown quiet as she’d said, “I don’t think it’s healthy to live in memories or fantasies of what might or could have been because they never have to change. But we do.”

Azriel had stared at her in the darkness. Stared at the outline of her face against the moonlight peeking in through the window. At the tears that had slipped from her eyes.

_ Secrets, _ he’d thought. Secrets were the foundation on which he’d built his life. The currency he’d learned to use and trade in so that he could survive.

“They call me the master of secrets,” he’d whispered to her as he’d wiped one of her tears with his free hand, “but sometimes I think the secrets master me. Sometimes I think that I cling to them in the darkness, because I’m scared of what I’ll lose if I let them go and step into the light. Sometimes I think that secrets are nothing more than the illusion of control I never had.” Something in him had eased, lifted, at the words, the confession.

Elain had leaned forward and kissed the back of his hand then. It was gentle and honest and loving. He’d never been kissed like that before.

He’d smelt it then, the wildflower scent of her. He’d wondered why he’d never detected it before–

“What are you thinking about?” Elain asked, clipping a long stemmed flower. She reached behind Azriel to place it in a basket. He ran his thumb and finger over the edge of his tunic, not fighting the small smile Elain had noticed on his lips.

“The first time you kissed me,” he said quietly. Elain blushed and turned away, clipping another flower. He smiled from the corner of his mouth. She’d always been shy when it came to discussing affection. But she always showed it, always. She just prefered to keep it between them. Private. It was private and only for them.

She’d been that way with her pain, too.

After the war, they’d traveled back to Velaris. It’d been almost a year since he’d found her in the Autumn Court. Had been almost two since they’d met. And Az could read her like an open book. She, too, could read him. Had learned his signs and tells.

They’d tried to settle back into their lives. Had tried and failed.

That first night, after a dinner in which he’d chosen to sit across from Elain, he’d ignored the look in her eyes when his friends had suggested she stay with Feyre and Rhys. She’d stared at him, then caught herself and agreed. She’d given them that sweet smile Az knew she’d used to survive in the Spring and Autumn Court.

And he’d not known why he’d acted that way.

But when he’d been unable to sleep for the next few nights, he’d figured it out. Figured it out and had promised himself that the next time he saw her, he’d not act like she were a secret to be kept, like she were Mor.

The third night away from her, they’d all gone out to a street festival celebrating the end of the war. He’d not liked the noise or the loud music, but he’d endured it for his friends, for his court, and for the people of Velaris who looked to him for stability.

Everything had gone fine until they’d turned down a street filled with food vendors–the closest one roasting meats over an open flame. Elain had just stopped. No one had noticed. No one but Azriel who’d seen that look in her eyes, that terror, before. He’d recognized the way her body hunched forward, the way her trembling hands had gone for her left thigh–to the scar she’d kept secret from everyone but him.

Nesta had turned around to call Elain and had frozen when she’d seen her sister. But Azriel had already moved, knowing exactly which memory she’d become lost in.

She’d started screaming a second before he’d gotten to her.

He’d not been able to touch her then for fear of making it worse. He’d folded them into shadows to block her sisters, any onlookers, and the smell of burning flesh. 

She’d screamed for them to stop, to stop hurting her, to let her go. She’d writhed on the ground–grabbing her thigh to stop a phantom pain from hot iron that wasn’t there. 

Azriel had lit the darkness with a golden ember of his magic.

“Elain,” he’d said, crouching as close to her as he’d thought he could get without becoming part of the living nightmare playing through her mind.

“Please,” she’d sobbed, but not to him.

“Elain, it’s Azriel. You’re free, Elain. You’re free now.” He’d repeated the words that had saved him when he’d been brought to live under Rhys’s mom’s roof. When she’d saved him from the things that haunted his waking mind. “You’re free. You got out. What you’re seeing is not real, Elain. I’m right here. Azriel is right here. I’m going to touch your hand, okay?”

Still she’d screamed as he’d reached for her. Over and over he’d repeated that she was free, safe, that it was he, Azriel, who’d held her hand. 

Slowly, she’d calmed. That film of memory glossing her eyes had lifted and she’d blinked up at him, sweaty and sobbing and relieved.

“Az?” Her voice had been raw.

“I’m here, sunshine. I’m right here,” he’d whispered, stroking a hand down her ashen cheek. He’d helped her sit up. She’d lifted her dress to check her thigh. The mottled mess of scar tissue looked the same as he’d remembered. It would never go away. She’d pushed her dress down and vomited on the sidewalk.

He’d continued to hold her hand. And when he’d been sure she could not vomit anymore, Azriel had picked her up and used his magic to clean the mess.

She’d been limp in his arms, exhausted from her fit.

“I’m sorry,” he’d said. And he’d known she knew why. He’d unfolded them from his shadows then, keeping a shield up to block the smell. Nesta had charged over–only to stop a few feet away when she’d beheld them. The way Az held Elain, the way Elain leaned into him, clutching his tunic–

“I have a house in the country,” Az had said to Nesta, as if she gave permission for Elain. “I think it would be good for Elain, for me, if we spent some time there.”

Nesta had only said, “Good.”

That had been over a year ago.

Azriel watched Elain as she moved around the garden, clipping and pulling and trimming. He liked watching her, being near her. She was easy to be with, easy to love.

“What?” she said, looking over her shoulder at him from a few rose bushes away. She clipped off a dying bloom.

“Nothing.” She tilted her head at him, and when he didn’t say anything more, she threw the half wilted bloom at him. He let it hit the side of his face. He smiled, she giggled. “You’re going to pay for that,” he said. 

In a flash, she threw another–hitting him square in the mouth.

“I dare you, shadowsinger,” she said with a wicked grin. She took a tentative step back and– _ Az moved.  _

She squealed as she bolted across the back of the garden toward the open meadow. She was fast, but Azriel was faster.

But he let her get almost to the river before he pounced, gently tackling her to the ground. They rolled a few feet before they came to a stop. Both laughing and breathing heavily. He rolled onto his back, pulling her across his chest.

“What were you thinking about back there?” she said.

“You, me.” He closed his eyes and basked in the heat of the late morning sun. The feel and weight of her on his chest was a comfort. He tightened his hold on her. 

She relaxed into him.

There was never any question about where he stood with Elain. Never a question about what he meant to her or what she meant to him. If she was lost or scared or upset, she'd look for him, come to him. She'd fold herself into his arms, or crawl into his lap, curl up at his side.

So unlike how it had been with Mor.

If Azriel had a nightmare, felt scared, or worried–one look from Elain was all it took for him to know that she could tell. Sometimes she'd see something in him and from across the room, or wherever she was, she’d open her arms. And he’d walk over and melt into her, and they’d stay like that until he was okay.

Sometimes she'd just come sit next to him and put her hand in his. Usually they’d sit in silence, but she'd always ask about what he was feeling, what he was thinking. Always. They never danced around their feelings. Never pretended they were anything but who they were. 

_ It was easy, _ Azriel thought.  _ To fall in love with Elain.  _

Like dark and light, we were meant to be.

“I was thinking about us, too,” she said quietly. He opened his eyes. Her arms were folded across his chest, her head rested atop them. Her sun hat lost in the chase. Golden-brown hair spilled over her shoulders and onto him. “About my first few months here with you.”

Azriel ran a finger down her cheek. He took an easy breath.

“Those months were hard,” he said. She nodded.

The first night he’d brought her to this house, she’d not been able to sleep. The fit in Velaris had drained her, but the memories were too close to the surface for her to relax. So Azriel had stayed awake with her.

The next day, they’d cleaned the house and washed the linens for the guest bed. They’d talked about her having her own room. But shortly after midnight, Azriel had found himself sitting up in bed wondering if it would be appropriate to go to her room and sleep on the floor, or wherever she’d allow him. But almost as soon as he’d had the thought, his bedroom door had opened, and Elain had walked in. 

She’d been crying.

He’d made no move to stop her when she’d walked to his bed, pulled back the covers, and had climbed in beside him. He’d wrapped her in his arms and wings.

“Sunshine, why do you cry?” he’d whispered. He hadn’t needed an answer, he’d known what darkness haunted her. So he’d traded darkness for darkness, and wrapped her in the soothing black of his own making–in the familiar warmth of the shadows and tendrils of his magic. And he’d kept her safe until morning light. 

She’d kept him safe until morning light.

They’d slept that way ever since.

Elain shifted on top of him, and they both sat up. She stood, spying her missing sun hat, and Azriel leaned back on his hands, soaking in the sunlight.

He’d never realized how much he loved the sun until her. Never realized just how long he’d spent in the shadows until her.

A petal ghosted over a scar on one of his wings. He had to hold his breath to keep from making noise. Elain giggled as she ran the yellow wildflower along his skin. Azriel was pretty sure no one had ever told her how sensitive Illyrian wings were. And maybe he didn’t have the heart to tell her what it really felt like. Or maybe he liked that she did it to show affection, and he’d be sad if she ever stopped.

“You snuck up on me,” he said, blushing as she ran the bloom over a particularly sensitive spot.

“You’ve grown soft in your age, shadowsinger,” she said. Az snorted. 

She kissed his shoulder, and he felt the tendrils of his shadows leak out to caress her–to check that she didn’t need more shade from the sun. One loosed itself and circled around the back of her neck before returning to him. She giggled. “Mister Kindly says he knew I was coming up behind you.”

Azriel laughed, low and deep. Elain had taken to naming his shadows–as if there were a discernable difference between them. There was not.

“And what else does Mister Kindly whisper to you behind my back?” Azriel said. He turned to face her, running a calloused finger down her bare arm. It’d been months before he’d convinced her that Fae women don’t have to keep their skin covered. It’d been hard for her to let go of some of her human tendencies.

She smiled softly and said, “He says that you snuck up on me as well.”

He stilled at her words, watching as tendrils of her hair were picked up by the warm summer breeze. He tucked a few strands behind her ears, just as she tucked the small yellow flower behind one of his.

He stroked the back of a finger along her jawline.

“I’m glad we found one another,” Azriel said quietly. She rose on her knees and placed a hand on his cheek, angling his face to hers.

“I’m glad we found one another, too.” She kissed him softly on the mouth.

He wasn’t sure when he’d started to fall in love with her, or when she’d fallen in love with him. And he supposed it didn’t matter–not really. They were meant to be together, and they didn’t need a mating bond to tell them that. Didn’t need the Cauldron to bless the bond that’d built between their souls. 

They’d forged that bond together–on friendship, on trust, and on honesty. They’d earned it, earned one another.

Azriel wrapped Elain in his arms and pulled her to lie in the grass with him.

_ We get to choose,  _ he thought.  _ We get to choose who we give our hearts too, who gets to be our mate. And I choose her. _


End file.
